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I Swear…

I will write a real post someday soon. Brain has not been braining well lately.

In the meantime, a Shapeling needs your help!

“cggirl” is an animator (hence the name) who’s working on a fat-positive video. She’s made me promise to point out that this is a WORK IN PROGRESS, y’all, ’cause she’s nervous about it being out there in its unfinished state — but really, except for the lack of sound, I think it’s pretty damned good as-is.

Anyway, cggirl would like to know what Shapelings think of what she’s got so far, which is this:

I really enjoyed the eating of the fruit part and the seeds falling down and the flowers blooming. It felt like a little celebration of her. And again it was so nice to see a woman whose size was similar to mine. :)

Very cool! It looks like you are working with After Effects, which is the program my husband and I work with. I really love the artistry of this and will be interested in what it will be like with sound.

Ericka – thank you, i think u r right, i think i will try playing with the pacing a bit, maybe add some quicker movements for contrast and see how that works.

katey / krista – good to know that’s you :)

stefanie – until you said that, i hadn’t planned to do an adam character because to me it was all about her and the fruit, and the sublimation of desire (for food, perhaps for sex, what have you…)
but now that u say that, it has planted a seed in my head for a possible sequel :)
and maybe in the sequel eve isn’t somehow causing their demise, maybe she is sharing some sort of freedom and joy with her large bodied adam?

and to all of you thanks :)))
i’m glad u like her. (i was kinda sick of seeing anime-style women in animation anyway…)
and i’m glad the story resonates even before the music and the finishing touches are on there.

(ah and when i thought about sublimation of desire, i was thinking of female desire particularly. but really these things apply to men as well so the idea of another piece with adam would actually be really cool!)

And Rose – yes this is after effects. Are you the one who was talking about doing some little puppet animations in after effects with ur husband? I remember thinking that was really cool. Hey if you or any of the other Shapelings are even interested in collaborating on some art, lets totally do it!

The only thing, and I hesitate to say this but it struck me rather strongly, was that after eating the full face view seemed expressionless. The joy seems to be happening only around her, not within. I don’t know how to express what I thought I would see…maybe something around the mouth?

Pippa that is a good comment, no need to hesitate :)
u have confirmed my suspicions cuz i was already thinking maybe i should give her a nice wide smile (i was going for something subtle but that doesn’t work with such a simple style, it just reads expressionless as u say)

and thanks again to everyone else for the encouragement and suggestions :)

I agree with Pippa, though. The face needs more expression. Maybe bigger eyes, too? The color on her cheeks looks a bit static and artificial, too – as if she’s wearing too much blusher.

Also, the story:
She sees a vision of fruit. She searches for it and finds it. She eats it.

I think that it relies a lot on subtext for dramatic tension. This is Eve, right? That makes us think that she’s been told not to eat the fruit. We believe, knowing the story and knowing the politic aim of this, that there was self-denial in the past. I’m not sure that the thoughtful/conflicted poses in the middle of the animation are clear in their meaning. I think that they’re meant to indicate a conflict about whether or not to eat the fruit, right? The first time I saw it, I thought that maybe she was trying to remember where the tree was, or trying to figure out what the vision meant. Without an authority telling her “don’t eat!”, the meaning isn’t completely clear.

cggirl,
Glad you got what I saw. If you wanted something less obvious than a smile or additional to one – then how about a lovely glowy light spreading up from her stomach and out from her body – the nutritional/wellbeing aspect of food?

Pippa it’s so funny you should say that! Early on I had a plan to do a sort of glow in there.
(I also wondered if to some people it would hint at sex and pregnancy – the forbidden fruit often symbolizes sex and the warmth in the belly might be seen like that… but hey if people read it like that i guess i don’t mind.)

So maybe i should really do that…

I might do a combination – broaden her smile and also do the glow thing.

And Dee I’m glad u liked it.
The eyes – i’m not sure if I want to give big eyes, because i was going for realistic proportions as a sort of backlash to the infantilized version of women we usually see in animation (huge eyes like a little girl, tiny body with big perky boobs..)

As for the conflict – ya, i’m glad u figured out what that was supposed to be. i don’t know exactly how to show it tho.
See, one can always go super obvious with that stuff… but i didn’t want to go too obvious. (i mean what do i do, a little angel and devil on her shoulder? i just couldnt think of anything that wasn’t a total cliche )

I thought the contrasting colors behind her could be seen as some sort of struggle, but i don’t expect people to necessarily read that. It’s just a little added layer…

So please, if any of you have any ideas on how to clarify the struggle of whether she should or should not eat the fruit, please let me know, that would be really helpful!

(Dee I’m gonna email you or comment on you blog in case u don’t see this, cuz i’m curious to hear any ideas u might have on this issue, as u are an excellent artist youself.)